Running
It was dark and raining outside. The mud sloshed around as heavy drops of water thundered from the stormy skies. I sat in my house reading a book. My life seemed to have lost meaning since the unreasonable death of my wife. My name is Eli Courtney. I am a writer for the local paper here in Welton. I am a widower, my wife had died the week before from something greatly unknown. She was found pale--which was unlike her. Normally she was tan--and cold. After doctors looked and examined her body, they found nothing that could have lead to death and after all of those stories about this ghost that supposedly haunted the town... I was beginning to worry. A month or so ago a house burnt down with no found cause of how the fire started. Just before that there was the Ember family incident in the woods and before that even there was the strange newpaper article that Mark Johnson published in the papers. That same article gave our paper a very bad name and put Mark Johnson into an asylum and being regarded as mad. I was furious with this decision. It had been years since that and all of the ghost stories were beginning to fade away, thankfully. However I've always been supersitious... always... I was reading my book in my rocking chair. I read quite absentmindedly, not paying attention. I had a strange feeling tonight and I in fact believed... I couldn't concentrate, I stood up and walked to the kitchen to get something to eat. When I opened the closet containing my food, I found that much of it was gone, however a bit of beef was left. I took it and began eating after cooking it over the stove. As I was eating, I kept thinking about this ghost... what if it had something to do with my wife's death? Something moved in front of the light of the lantern lit in the main room, casting a flicker of shade over a bit of the room for only a mere moment. I looked up, nothing was there. After I was finished eating, I decided to go sit back down and watch the freshly lit fire in my fireplace. I sat watching it pop and crackle on the wood and slowly eat it away. I heard a loud, loud thump outside. It sounded violent and hostile. I grabbed my musket hanging atop my fireplace and slowly walked up to the door, and yanked it open. There seemed to be nothing on the porch, nothing amonst the light of the dimly lit moon that is. I walked out a little further, checking everything. I looked back into my house as suddenly the lantern went out and my door slammed shut. I tried to open it but the door to the house was tight as a lock. It would not budge, not matter how hard I tried. I stopped, eventually giving up hope. I sighed and turned, the woods spooked me after dark. I decided that I had to go on and find the rest of the town, perhaps stay at my mother's house until it was a good enough time to come back and deal with the stupid door. I walked off the porch, my body becoming drenched in rainfall. Thunder clapped and cracked overhead, I ignored, fearing not much however becoming spooked by the woods. It was only natural of course, there were all sorts of animals to be worried about. I mostly feared bears, mountain lions, and large dogs that could inflict pain. As I kept walking along the path that ran deep, deep into the woods, I began to get a heavy feeling in my stomach. It was very heavy, this strange mood in the air that forebode terrible things. I stopped as I suddenly saw something up ahead. Some sort of shape that looked like it was just standing there. If only I would have brought a lanter, but it was fine. I could see perfectly ahead with the light of the moon alone. However a distortion pattern illuminated my sights of what lied beyond my field of vision, just up ahead. I could have sworn I saw something move... I know it did. It passed right through the path, it was that shape. "Hello?" I said. "Who's there?" A light began to shine from behind one of the trees. In my astonishment, I walked up closer, turning and looking behind it. On a large rock which was crusted into the side of a small slope on the side of the path, words were carved into it and they glowed a blinding blue. SHE WATCHES US '' This spooked me. I wondered exactly what it meant, and how on earth it was glowing. I heard a snap behind me, I turned quickly to witness something pass between two trees. I glanced back at the rock... it said something entirely different now. ''SHE KNOWS YOU '' This time the words were begining to glow a more greenish blue color and then suddenly morphed back into blinding blue. I wanted to touch it, but when I got close it seemed to singe my fingers not with heat but with coldness. I stepped away, and began walking very quickly along the path, thinking about happier things. It was only a matter of time before I stopped in the middle of the path again. There was a long wooden sign nailed to a tree. I approached it, it seemed to have been posted by order of the mayor a long time ago. However the words were so faded and old I couldn't tell what they said. I looked away for a moment and when I came back... more glowing letters... ''YOU CANNOT LEAVE YOU CANNOT ESCAPE '' My heart began to pound in my chest. I took off in a sprint, running as fast as I could. I thought I heard the sound of footsteps running behind me, I could have sworn, something was after me, ''something was chasing me. I didn't stop to look back, but somehow something in my path tripped me and I stumbled, doing frontrolls down a slight slope. I finally landed, my musket was cruched under me and banged so hard it fired and one of the bullets shot me in the shoulder. It threw the gun out to the side, having its tip away from me. I screamed and moaned in pain, cupping my wound. I heard a voice... some sort of whisper... Part of it sounded english, the other... I'm not sure. Part of it told me "You are going to die here" another said "You should never have come" and still another said "She is here, she is coming..." I got up, holding my wound and runing as much as I could, alas I tripped again, and fell over. I looked back at the path, there was nothing even in the way. What did I trip on? I looked over to my left to find a piece of old parchment nailed to the bottom of a rotten tree trunk. Old black ink was stained on it, saying "TONIGHT IS YOURS" What? I didn't get it, but after a moment of thinking about it... I knew exactly what it meant. I looked back over the path from where I had come from, I saw a figure standing there. It was oddly distorted from the lack of light and the stormy rainfall. I blinked my eyes once, as soon as my eyes had done that, the figure was closer. I looked away for a moment, and then back. She was closer. I just kept staring and the figure and it kept staring back at me. I couldn't see a face, but I didn't need to. I knew that this was not just some stranger in the woods. I closed my eyes and covered my ears as much as my one shoulder would let me. "She's not real! She's not real! She's not real! She's not real!" I kept telling myself over and over again. "Shes' not realy! She's not real! She's not real! Don't listen! She's not real! She's not real! She's not real! She is not real! She is fake! She is not real! She's not real!" Finally after crying, I opened my eyes again and she was gone. I felt relieved, thinking perhaps I was going insane. I stood back up, still cupping my bloody shoulder and turned around. I nearly fell back in horror. Standing in a line in front of me in the path were about five, maybe six, no, seven children. All of them had pale faces with dark shadows under and radiating from their eyes. Their pupils were quite narrow and their faces radiated gloomy, distrustful faces. They glared at me as if I were some enemy. I stepped back in horror, gasping. One of the children was missing an arm, and a bloody socket remained. Shreds of muscle and tissue drenched in crimson blood hung out from the open wound and the child seemed to pay no mind to it. I gasped again as I saw one little girl was missing an eye. A large bloody gash remained, blood still poured from it like blood tear drops. All of their fingers were covered in blood and some of them had scratches and cuts across their bodies. I heard a snap next to me, looking away for a moment, I turned my head then looked back and they were gone... absolutely gone... I backed away from where I had been standing, and to ensure I wasn't being followed, I turned around. Nothing was there so I turned and kept walking the other direction, still holding my wound. The terror in my blood was overwhelming. I couldn't handle it. Something was out here, and it wanted me... It wanted me dead... I kept walking slowly, trying to think of happier things, but there was a terrible feeling in the air. My heart pounding was the loudest sound I heard, it seemed to rise past the power of the thunder itself and the rain seemed ever so quiet in this eerie night. My heart was racing, my stomach was twisted and I felt like I was about to puke. I couldn't do this, the terror was too much. I kept walking, ever so cautiously. I knew something moved to my left. I kept looking up ahead and began walking slowly. I felt something on my neck, it felt like someone breathing on me, although the breath... was oddly cold... I turned, nothing there. I kept walking. It seemed as though things were getting worse, the further I went into the woods. A fog was rolling in with the rain, in an unnatural way and the thunder became quiet. The rain was dialing down to a soft pitter-patter that was ever so quiet. I finally came to a dead end... How? There was a long wooden fence in my way. I blinked, and suddenly words had appeared on the fence. They glowed blue. DO YOU BELIEVE?? I stepped back, a snap behind me. I turned around then looked back and the figure... this strange Apparition... was standing right in front of the fence... It screamed a vicious scream, I merely backed away screaming with it. I fell over, and was being pulled towards the fence. The figure disappeared, however I still saw what looked like her face floating in the air. I was forced to stand up and look at the wording on the fence and suddenly... everything went dark...